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Your Retention, Please (TV series episode)
Your Retention, Please was the 7th episode of Season 9 of the CBS-TV series M*A*S*H, also the 205th overall series episode, Written by Erik Tarloff and directed by Charles S. Dubin, it originally aired on January 5, 1981. Synopsis After getting a second Dear John letter from his ex-wife, Klinger is persuaded by a sweet-talking retention officer to re-enlist. Full episode summary Klinger gets a letter from his ex-wife Laverne (who dumped him in ''Mail Call Three'''' ) and reads it to Colonel Potter. In the letter, Laverne admits she made a mistake leaving him. While reading the letter, Klinger tells Potter how he entrusted his best friend Gus Nagy to monitor the situation back home and "keep the fur flying" between Laverne and her soon-to-be ex husband. As he continues reading, Klinger is convinced that Laverne is going to ask him to come back to her, but at the end of the letter, she drops a bombshell on Klinger: she's going to marry Gus! Klinger is crushed, having lost his girl and his best friend in one sentence. As wounded are arriving in camp, Potter gives Klinger the next 24 hours off, immediately following surgery, to heal his broken heart. In the OR, Winchester is having a tough time reconnecting nerves via a textbook a corpsman is holding when his male nurse, Sergeant Barney Hutchinson, audaciously offers advice; Winchester is insulted, but when Hutchinson says he was a member of the surgical team back home that developed the same procedure, the others chide Winchester to listen to Hutchinson; he reconsiders, and the procedure is successful. That same day, MSgt. Vickers (Barry Corbin), an Army retention officer, visits the camp to see who he can interest in re-enlisting for another tour with the Army. The first name on his short list is Hutchinson, whom Vickers goes to talk to while in the Mess Tent, but an angered Hutchinson very nearly gets into a fight with Vickers. Hutchinson reveals his disgust with the Army, claiming reverse discrimination; Hutchinson is a fully-registered nurse and should have automatically been made a commissioned officer like the women nurses, but the Army refused to recognize Hutchinson as a nurse because he is a man, so they relegated him to a lowly Private. Knowing that Hutchinson is a just as good a nurse as the women, Margaret is in full agreement with Hutchinson's situation and believes he is not getting what he deserves. Later in the Officers Club, Vickers tries his sales pitch on Igor, who flatly refuses (saying he has a wife - and a girlfriend - to go home to). But then Igor directs Vickers to Klinger drinking away his sorrows while standing at the jukebox listening to ''Harbor Lights ''(his and Laverne's song). Vickers brings Klinger a drink and schmoozes him with his "soft sell" about Army opportunities and benefits; Klinger takes the bait and asks, "Where do I sign?" Col. Potter has been directed to talk to the camp's senior staff about Army career opportunities, but the meeting gets off to a bad start when Potter brings up the suggestion of making the Army a permanent career, causing Charles, B.J., and Hawkeye to all burst out laughing. Hawkeye endlessly makes snide remarks while Potter attempts to continue the lecture, but he quickly reaches the breaking point and ends the meeting, and then orders Hawkeye to fill in for Klinger. While Hawkeye is filing paperwork, Vickers arrives in the office with two signed re-enlistment forms. Hawkeye grabs them to look at the names, and is surprised to see the second one was signed by none other than Klinger; Vickers passively remarks about how when he saw Klinger "crying in his beer over some skirt named Laverne, it was all over but the signing". Disgusted with his taking advantage of Klinger's vulnerability, Hawkeye calls Vickers a "vulture", and then goes looking for Klinger, finding him asleep on the bar in the Officers Club (with the jukebox continuously playing ''Harbor Lights). Hawkeye presses Klinger to remember what happened last night, and is shocked when Klinger, citing Laverne and Gus, replies, "I must have passed out after I re-enlisted". Hawkeye is convinced that Klinger has thrown away the best years of his life, but when Klinger reminds him that it's not yet official until he takes the oath, Hawkeye is delighted and drags Klinger to Colonel Potter in an attempt to keep him from making a huge mistake. Already exasperated with Hawkeye's incessant snubbing of the Army, Potter reveals he is willing to give Klinger the oath, but to satisfy Hawkeye, Potter orders Klinger to take some time and think things over, to which Hawkeye agrees, telling Klinger that he'll continue doing his work for him while he sorts things out. After Hawkeye leaves, Klinger immediately walks into Potter's tent, ready to take the oath. Later, Hawkeye finds Klinger in the office writing a hate letter to Gus (while again listening to Harbor Lights ''on his own record player). Hawkeye points out that writing to Gus was what started all the trouble in the first place and suggests that Klinger write Laverne instead. He starts slow, but then finally lets his thoughts spill out and tells Laverne off, getting it all out of his system, which makes him feel better, but also makes him realize the mistake he just made... When Klinger tells Hawkeye that he went and had Potter swear him in, Hawkeye angrily barges into Potter's tent and reads him the riot act. But Potter then subtly reveals that he decided to hoodwink Klinger by administering a reworded variant of the Presidential oath instead of the Oath of Enlistment; Potter knew that Klinger didn't specify what oath he wanted and wouldn't know the difference, and it bought them some much-needed time. Hawkeye apologizes, but when he mentions that Klinger has changed his mind again and now thinks he's a prisoner of war, Potter immediately becomes concerned and, with Hawkeye right behind him, rushes into the office, but Klinger is nowhere to be found. The next morning at muster, Margaret, in an token attempt to correct the Army's oversight, calls Hutchinson front and center and, for his last three weeks in camp, promotes him to honorary First Lieutenant using her old Lieutenant's bars. Right after Hutchinson gets his bars, Klinger, on Sophie, rides into the compound dressed as Lady Godiva, wearing nothing but a long flowing white wig made from pillow stuffings (with parts of the wig strategically placed); he explains that the stunt is a protest meant to show that he is unfit to wear any uniform. Claiming he was "drafted behind my back", Klinger begs Potter to discharge him, but Potter laughingly replies, "Discharged?! You're gonna be ''impeached!", leaving Hawkeye and BJ in stitches, and Klinger in total confusion. Later, everyone is in the Officers Club having a celebratory drink for the newly-anointed "Lieutenant" Hutchinson while Hawkeye, B.J., and Klinger all mull over the day's events. When Harbor Lights ''starts playing on the jukebox, Klinger very calmly stands up, yanks the record out of the jukebox and smashes it saying, "Any requests? It's my nickel!" Research notes/Fun facts * Rizzo is mentioned to be willing to re-enlist. In "[[April Fools|''April Fools]]", Rizzo explains that he enjoys being in the Army because it's the only place that is willing to pay you while being a bum. But in the series finale, Rizzo mentions he's looking forward to starting his own business back home in Louisiana (breeding frogs for French restaurants). * Anachronism: Klinger and Laverne's love song is Harbor Lights; the version they use in this episode is an instrumental version from an unspecified artist. The song was originally published in 1937, and several versions were released throughout the last quarter of 1950. The Korean War started in June 1950. * In this episode Winchester has to be ordered to repair nerve damage; in an earlier episode "Morale Victory," Winchester's patient, Private Sheridan, suffered nerve damage to his hand. * Potter lets Klinger "ride" Sophie without any punishment, yet he cancels Captain Roy DuPree's transfer request to MASH 4077 when Dupree rode his horse. Goofs *Hutchinson claims that since he was not commissioned as a officer he is a Private; yet he is identied as a Sergeant. *Hutchinson also claims the only thing he does is push a broom to sweep a floor; yet it is inconcevialbe that either regular army officers Sherman T. Potter or Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan would have let a quailified member of the MASH 4077 Medical Staff preform work they are not trained for! *Winchhester actually sneers at the thought of reenlisting in the US Army along with Hawkeye and B.J. which beggers the question-if he has such a distasteful dislike of the US Armed Services..how did he get such a High rank as an officer? But also in previous episodes, he seems proud of his service and even defended MacArthur from jokes by Hawkeye and B.J. So maybe his time in Korea has made him decide to retire from the military after he leaves Korea. Guest stars/recurring cast *Barry Corbin as Sergeant Joe Vickers *Sam Weisman as Sergeant Barney Hutchinson *Jeff Maxwell as Igor Straminsky *Uncredited appearances: **Kellye Nakahara **Jo Ann Thompson **Jennifer Davis Category:Season 9 episodes